Faculty Book: Electa Arenal

Electa Arenal, trans.

In this uniquely provocative collection, Jesús Aguado adopts the voice of Vikram Babu, a seventeenth-century Indian mystic and basket-weaver who guides the reader on an irreverent and enjoyable truth-seeking mission. Each of these fifty fable-like poems ends with Vikram Babu posing a question for his audience, inviting us to take part in the work and let our own responses transform the meaning of the poem. Through the wry observations of his invented persona, Aguado gently unmasks human frailty and hypocrisy, revealing a world of twisted contradictions. Electa Arenal, the translator, is professor emerita of women’s studies and Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian languages and literatures at the Graduate Center.